Wednesday, December 10, 2008

According to a
judge in Australia yesterday, a cartoon
rendition of two fictional characters who are engaged in a sex act
constitutes child
pornography if either of the cartoon characters is a
'child'.

WTF?

So now it's clear - child porn laws have nothing whatsoever to
do with protection of children (unless you are going to try and pretend
that access to porn encourages the viewer to go out and commit acts
outlined in the porn itself).

Every now and then the State decloaks
itself, and its pronouncement\s come closer to Orwell's masterful
exposition (from 1984)
of the mind of the State... as O'Brien says as he tortures Winston
Smith:

The
Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in
the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or
luxury or long life or happiness: only power, pure power. What pure
power means you will understand presently. We are different from all
the oligarchies of the past, in that we know what we are doing. All the
others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and
hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close
to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize
their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that
they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just
round the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free
and equal. We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power
with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an
end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a
revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the
dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of
torture is torture. The object of power is power.

As I have said before, I would never defend
anybody who would do harm to a child - whether it is a kiddie-fiddling
priest, or a politician who orders bombs to be dropped on Iraqi
children. People who do harm to other people ought to be retaliated
against with overwhelming force: I don't believe in 'an eye for an eye'
- my credo is 'You had a crack at me, now prepare to die'.

But watching a video of two Simpsons characters
'having sex' harms nobody. In fact I seriously doubt whether the
defendant was watching it in order to become aroused - doubtless it was
one of those things that is meant to be funny in a stupid/sick kind of
way, in the same league as "Jackass" or Tom Green.

What's next? For example, there are episodes of 'South Park'
that deal with child molestation: are those to be banned?

There must
come a point at which we as a species decide that we have had
enough of knee-jerk over-reactions by people whose best use of their
time is filling their pockets with our taxes and making stupid rules
about cartoons.

What this represents, is an implicit claim by the State
regarding its ability to infer thoughtcrime.
That is, they have inferred an intent to harm children in the future,
as a result of watching simulated pornography where
the act takes place between two entities that do not exist (and cannot,
therefore, be said to have an 'age'). No harm has come to anybody: nor
child, nor adult, nor prince nor pauper... yet the State sticks in its
beak and grasps up a citizen in its claw.

There are, it seems, people who are genuinely deviant. Many of
them are priests and judges - but deviancy, both sexual and
general, is much more prevalent among politicians. Folks who
have deviant preferences ought to be prevented from interacting with
children - that is absolutely true.

I would advocate giving these
people as real a 'virtual experience' as possible - let them spend
their every waking moment wanking themselves stupid, using fake porn of
fake children: you and I might find that distasteful, but so what? I
find it distasteful that anybody would voluntarily have sex with John
Winston Howard - but it's not my place to call for a ban (calling for
Howard to be hanged for War Crimes is another story... I have the right
to do that).

If would help defuse them - the reason they target the
vulnerable is because of frustration.

OK - now a far more subtle question.

How do you know if a
cartoon character is a 'child'?

Lisa and Maggie and Bart (and Stewie from Family Guy)
are clearly meant
to be children and are depicted as such. But what about Brian (the
dog)?

And consider the
'characters' in this stuff
called 'hentai'
(cartoon porn - the word 'hentai' can be translated as 'sexually
perverted' according to Wikipedia). The
'women' therein are often depicted as being physically
mature
(i.e., big boobs), but there is little doubt that they are meant to be
'children' or over-developed pre-adolescents.

What of 'real' porn in which women remove all trace of pubic
hair - can there be any other motivation for that other than the desire
to look prepubescent? If an real actress aged 30 plays a porn character
intended to be a child aged 15 or 16, is the resulting film 'child
porn'?

Don't get me wrong - I am not asking these questions in order
to know what porn subscriptions to cancel... it just strikes me that
when we permit politicians and judges (who are political appointees) to
judge thoughtcrime, we are opening a door to which the State should
never be given the right to enter. Once they start believing that they
have the right to decide what we must be thinking, we are in the
deepest shit imaginable.

Major Market Indices

The broad market - the All Ordinaries (XAO)
- rose 39.6 points (1.12%), finishing
at 3573.3 points. The index hit an intraday high of 3583.8 at 3:37 pm,
while the low for the day was 3497.6 - set at 10:02 am Sydney time. A
90-point rally off the low - why exactly? No reason - just Hope. Always
Hope.

Total volume traded on the ASX was 1.16bn units, 2.2% above
its 10-day average of 1.14bn shares.The ASX's daily listing of all
stocks included 1012 different 3-letter FPO's which traded (i.e., had
non-zero trade volume). Of these, 378 issues rose, with volume in
rising issues totalling 597.4m units; there were 382 declining stocks,
which traded aggregate declining volume of 371.2m shares.

Of the 488 All Ordinaries components, 205 rose while 173 fell.
Volume was tilted in favour of the gainers by a margin of 1.3:1, with
429.25m shares traded in gainers while 329.74m shares traded in the
day's losers.

The Index that forms the cash basis for the SPI Futures - the S&P/ASX
200 (XJO)
- managed a solid gain, adding 36.4 points (1.01%), closing out the
session at 3640.7 points.

The "heavy hitters" of the Australian market - the ASX
20 Leaders (XTL)
- advanced by under a percent, adding 12.7 points (0.58%), closing out
the session at 2188 points.

Among the 20 big guns, the decliners just edged out the
gainers - 10 advancing components were only just edged out (in
numerical terms) by the decliners. The stocks which make up the index
traded a total of 189.61m units; 10 index components rose, with rising
volume amounting to 99.34m shares, while the 11 decliners had volume
traded totalling 90.27m units. The major percentage gainers within the
index were

Rio Tinto (RIO),
+$4.05 (12.14%) to $37.40 on volume of 5.8 million shares;

BHP Billiton (BHP),
+$1.91 (6.71%) to $30.36 on volume of 21.3 million shares;

Foster's Group (FGL),
+$0.24 (4.4%) to $5.70 on volume of 10.2 million shares;

Woodside Petroleum (WPL),
+$1.27 (3.92%) to $33.70 on volume of 2.1 million shares; and

Westfield Group (WDC),
+$0.45 (3.45%) to $13.49 on volume of 6.3 million shares.

On the less salubrious side of the big-cap fence, the
following stocks were the worst-performed within the index:

Stockland (SGP),
-$0.19 (5.01%) to $3.60 on volume of 8.2 million shares;

Commonwealth Bank Of Australia (CBA),
-$1.5 (5%) to $28.50 on volume of 12.4 million shares;

Brambles (BXB),
-$0.19 (2.61%) to $7.08 on volume of 5.3 million shares; and

Suncorp-Metway. (SUN),
-$0.2 (2.44%) to $8.00 on volume of 3.5 million shares.

The ASX Small Ordinaries (XSO)
The small end of the market absolutely wiped the floor with its
large-cap counterpart. The Small Ords had a bit of a moonshot, stacking
on 32.6 points (2.02%), closing out the session at 1643.7 points.

Among the stocks that make up the Small Caps index, 100 index
components finished to the upside, and of the rest, 75 closed lower for
the session.

The 208 stocks which make up the index traded a total of 236.1m units:
volume in the 100 gainers totalling 109.71m shares, with trade
totalling 85.28m units in the index's 75 declining components. The
major percentage gainers within the index were

Babcock & Brown Power (BBP),
+$0.01 (20%) to $0.06 on volume of 5.6 million shares;

Albidon (ALB),
+$0.01 (18.31%) to $0.08 on volume of 1.8 million shares;

Market Breadth

GICS Industry Indices

Among the 11 industry indices, 8 registered an advance for the
session, the remaining 3 lost ground.

The best performing index was Materials (XMJ),
which added 424.9 points (5.27%) to 8480.5 points. The 45 stocks which
make up the index traded a total of 174.39m units; 26 index components
rose, with rising volume amounting to 77.1m shares, while the 12
decliners had volume traded totalling 65.18m units. The major
percentage gainers within the index were

Fortescue Metals Group Ltd (FMG),
+$0.39 (16.67%) to $2.73 on volume of 16.6 million shares;

Second in the index leadership stakes was Utilities
(XUJ),
which gained 150.7 points (3.65%) to 4273.9 points. The 11 stocks which
make up the index traded a total of 54.75m units; 8 index components
rose, with rising volume amounting to 50.78m shares, while the 3
decliners had volume traded totalling 3.97m units. The major percentage
gainers within the index were

Babcock & Brown Power (BBP),
+$0.01 (20%) to $0.06 on volume of 5.6 million shares;

Babcock & Brown Infrastructure Group
(BBI),
+$0.01 (19.72%) to $0.09 on volume of 30.5 million shares;

Duet Group (DUE),
+$0.19 (11.59%) to $1.83 on volume of 2.5 million shares; and

Energy World Corporation Ltd (EWC),
+$0.02 (8.33%) to $0.26 on volume of 5.5 million shares.

The bronze medal for today goes to Energy (XEJ),
which climbed 372.8 points (3.19%) to 12074.7 points. The 19 stocks
which make up the index traded a total of 37.98m units; 12 index
components rose, with rising volume amounting to 29.98m shares, while
the 5 decliners had volume traded totalling 6.67m units. The major
percentage gainers within the index were

OIL Search (OSH),
+$0.48 (11.21%) to $4.76 on volume of 6.2 million shares;

Nexus Energy (NXS),
+$0.04 (8.43%) to $0.45 on volume of 2.4 million shares;

Santos (STO),
+$1.00 (7.75%) to $13.90 on volume of 4 million shares; and

Centennial Coal Company (CEY),
+$0.20 (7.38%) to $2.91 on volume of 2.3 million shares.

The worst-performed index for the session was Financials
ex Property Trusts (XXJ),
which dipped 104.2 points (2.67%) to 3792.4 points. The 27 stocks which
make up the index traded a total of 109.35m units; The 8 decliners had
volume traded totalling 69.56m units, and 18 index components rose,
with rising volume amounting to 38.52m shares, The major percentage
decliners within the index were

Suncorp-Metway. (SUN),
-$0.2 (2.44%) to $8.00 on volume of 3.5 million shares; and

National Australia Bank (NAB),
-$0.3 (1.51%) to $19.60 on volume of 8.3 million shares.

Just missing out on the wooden spoon was Consumer
Discretionary (XDJ),
which slid 14.4 points (1.27%) to 1121.6 points. The 23 stocks which
make up the index traded a total of 47.41m units; The 12 decliners had
volume traded totalling 26.96m units, and 7 index components rose, with
rising volume amounting to 11.08m shares, The major percentage
decliners within the index were

Tabcorp Holdings (TAH),
-$0.23 (3.48%) to $6.37 on volume of 3.3 million shares;

West Australian Newspapers Holdings (WAN),
-$0.15 (3.05%) to $4.76 on volume of 647.4 thousand shares;

Tatts Group (TTS),
-$0.08 (2.96%) to $2.62 on volume of 4.2 million shares;

Harvey Norman Holdings (HVN),
-$0.06 (2.54%) to $2.30 on volume of 4.5 million shares; and

Third-to-last amongst the sector indices was Healthcare
(XHJ),
which slid 12.3 points (0.15%) to 8384.6 points. The 9 stocks which
make up the index traded a total of 9.44m units; The 2 decliners had
volume traded totalling 3.51m units, and 6 index components rose, with
rising volume amounting to 5.38m shares, The major percentage decliners
within the index were

CSL (CSL),
-$0.47 (1.41%) to $32.90 on volume of 2 million shares; and